Damn Cowboys

Talking to ESPN's Jeff Pearlman about Eagles' loathsome archnemeses.

by E. James Beale

Earlier this year, ESPN.com's Jeff Pearlman published Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty (HarperCollins), an exposé on the early '90s Cowboys and the hookers-and-blow backdrop they played against. Just when you thought you couldn't hate the Cowboys any more, this book goes and validates every nasty rumor you've heard about those drug-filled hooligans (they held position meetings in a strip club, for instance).

With Cowboy Week upon us, we thought we'd turn to Pearlman to help us really hate the Cowboys — not just on the surface, because T.O. plays there and Tony Romo dates Jessica Simpson, but as an institution.

City Paper: Your book covers the White House Cowboys. How rare was this team's antics? This stuff wasn't happening in good, hard-working places like Philly, right? 

Jeff Pearlman: It was pretty rare and no, I don't think stuff like that was happening in Philly. Dallas lends itself to that kind of behavior: The way people worship and fawn over the team and fawn over the players is different than most places, and the city has a history with this stuff. Going back to Hollywood Henderson in the late '70s, teams there have always had the history of Cowboys misbehaving and the city accepting it.

I'll put it this way: If you were Ty Detmer [a backup quarterback in Philly], and people see you on the street they might buy you a cheesesteak or something, but a stripper isn't going to give you a blowjob on the side of the stage. If you were a Cowboy, they would. If you were the Cowboys' backup quarterback or third string receiver or whatever, you were a god in that city.

CP: Those early '90s teams were basically fueled on booze, women and cocaine; the current Cowboys are defined by in-team strife, party-boy cornerbacks and the quarterback's girlfriend. What is it about the franchise that either produces or allows for all of this debauchery?

JP: First of all, I think they weren't fueled on booze, they were fueled by incredible talent — people always overlook this. Those '90s teams could afford to behave that way because they could win on three hours of sleep the same way they would win with nine hours.

I hate when people compare the modern teams to the teams of the '90s because those '90s teams were just so incredibly talented. A lot of people make the Owens/Irvin comparison, but Owens is a freaking buffoon. He's a guy who throws teammates under the bus. Irvin wasn't a guy to throw people under a bus. He would never do that to a teammate. You're in Philly so you know what Owens is like, he's doing it to Romo now, he did it to McNabb there, he did it to Garcia — he questioned [Garcia's] sexuality!

That stuff can happen in Dallas because [Dallas Owner] Jerry [Jones] will give guys second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth chances. That's how they always end up with guys like Pacman Jones, who'd still be playing now if he wasn't injured. Sometimes it works out — look at Charles Haley — but a lot of the time [Jones] just ends up with guys like Pacman. 

CP: Can Dallas' team win, or do they already have too many of these problems?

JP: They definitely can. At the end of the day it's talent and I think most people would agree that they're one of the three or four most talented teams in the league. The idea that teams need chemistry in the sense that everyone gets together and has Bible study together is a little far-fetched.

CP: These days it seems like every time an athlete walks into a strip club and shoots himself in the leg with his illegally concealed firearm we hear about it ... I mean, that can't be less shocking that Michael Irvin stabbing a teammate in his neck, right?

JP: Well, there is a huge difference between being a pro athlete in New York and being one in Dallas. The Dallas Morning News reported it one time and that was it, it disappeared for a couple years.

CP: You've written tell-all books about two of Philly's greatest enemies: the Mets and the Cowboys. When's the J.D. Drew bio? You got an Ivan Drago project in the works?

JP: Ha. Actually one of the first stories I wrote for SI was a J.D. Drew profile when he was still in the Arizona Fall League, I think he's a great guy [author's note: Jeff is wrong]. But yeah, after I get done with [an upcoming Roger] Clemens [biography], I'll see if I can tell the Clubber Lang story.

Constant sports blogging at citypaper.net/sportscomplex.